Walt Disney World released room recategorization info for the mid-tier hotels, with changes occurring for 2026 bookings. The new options will be offered at Caribbean Beach, Coronado Springs Resort, and Port Orleans Resorts – French Quarter and Riverside. Here are full details plus a few key takeaways about this initiative.
According to Walt Disney World, the changes are being made to 2026 bookings to simplify room categories and to improve guests’ check-in experience. To accomplish this, Disney will be adjusting the room categories at Moderate Resorts, which includes Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, Disney’s Port Orleans Resort—French Quarter and Disney’s Port Orleans Resort—Riverside.
The main room categories moving forward are Standard Room, Preferred Room, or King Bed room (Standard Rooms offer 2 queen beds by default). Walt Disney World also revealed that select Moderate Resorts will continue to offer additional categories–for example, the “Royal Guest Room” category at Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside.
Room categories have gotten complicated at the Moderate Resorts, which have been categorizing rooms by location and view. Meaning that the above room categories previously existed, but so too did options like “Pool or Water View.”
Walt Disney World guests will still be able to make special requests during the check-in process or upon arrival. This includes resort buildings, views, floor numbers, or even specific room numbers. As always, special requests are not guaranteed and are subject to availability. Additionally, the request must fall within the category booked–meaning you can’t book a Standard Room and then request a specific room number that’s actually a Preferred Room.
We highly recommend making room requests, especially at the sprawling Moderate Resorts. See these posts for advice:
We’re hoping to have something similar for Port Orleans Riverside once the ongoing room refurbishment is complete. I think it’s somewhat overkill for French Quarter, as that more compact resort doesn’t really have locations to avoid, per se. Room requests there should be much more intuitive.
This room recategorization is hardly stop-the-presses news, but it caught my eye and there are a few quick takeaways worth sharing:
First, this is very clearly still a work in progress.
When searching for rooms on disneyworld.com, both the old and new categories show up, making it arguably even more confusing before. More notable, though, is that there isn’t much availability for many dates and resorts.
This is almost certainly an error. There’s simply no way resorts are already totally sold out for random nights in the off-season during September 2026. It’ll be months before even historically high-occupancy travel dates sell out at popular resorts. What we’re seeing is a glitch, presumably due to the system changeover of the room categories. If you’re having issues, don’t freak out about your dates already being booked–just check back in a few hours or days.
Second, this change is probably being made in response to guest satisfaction. I’d hazard a guess that many first-timers pay extra, not realizing what the view category actually entails, and then have a “that’s it?” reaction upon arrival.
It’s always been a bit odd to me that hotels with exterior hallways and no balconies have view categories. We have never paid extra for a better view at a Moderate, nor have we even enjoyed one when upgraded for free. It’s just such an odd setup with other guests walking past your room, and it’s not like you can see whatever the ‘upgraded’ view is from a logical location in the room, anyway.
Heck, we don’t even endorse Preferred Rooms for most guests, which made our list of the Worst Wastes of Money at Walt Disney World. But at least the superior location has some value. Paying for a view at a Moderate is just like throwing $1,000 on the ground and leaving three days early. The one room type I do really like at Moderate Resorts is the corner room, as it means an extra window, which is nice for having a bit more natural light.
Most interestingly to me, this strongly suggests the Royal Rooms will continue to exist in 2026!
As we previously reported, Disney’s Port Orleans Resorts Room Refurbishments Are Underway Until 2026 (actually 2027 once all is said and done). Walt Disney World only announced that this impacts the Magnolia Bend rooms, which are the “Royal Rooms.” It was previously unclear whether these highly-themed rooms are being refreshed in a similar style, or going away in favor of standard rooms.
What we did know is that the Royal Rooms are due for a hard goods refurbishment, mean they’re being gutted. Given that and the fact that Walt Disney World has since ended the “experiment” in the Pirate Rooms at Caribbean Beach, I was worried that the Royal Rooms would go away for good. It’s still possible they will and this listing is in error, but I doubt it. Walt Disney World is usually on top of these changes.
Fans of the Royal Rooms probably lucked out that this refurbishment has been delayed by several years. In general, the timing of the Royal Rooms has been very fortuitous. They were created just before the blandification of Walt Disney World resort rooms, and are now being redone just as the pendulum has swung back in the direction of more themed design in rooms. Still doesn’t guarantee the end result will be as good as what it’s replacing, but I’m just glad the Royal Rooms will (seemingly) still exist when our daughter ages into them!
Conversely, there is still no booking category for the ‘Under the Sea’ rooms at Caribbean Beach!
In case you’re unfamiliar with these rooms–and there’s a good chance you are not unless you’re a CBR fan or happened to see reviews when the conversion first occurred–Caribbean Beach replaced the aforementioned Pirate Rooms with Little Mermaid-inspired rooms a couple years ago.
These rooms are dramatically different from the Standard Rooms or other 5th Sleeper Rooms at Caribbean Beach. They’re more like Disney Vacation Club-style Studios. They’re not for everyone, but we love them. (See Review, Photos & Video: New Little Mermaid Rooms at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort.)
Unfortunately, the average guest would not even know the Under the Sea/Little Mermaid rooms even exist by browsing disneyworld.com. They’re not mentioned or pictured, nor are they a distinct booking category. The only way to get ‘guarantee’ getting one (or avoid getting one) is via a room request.
That made some degree of sense while the reimagining was still in progress, but they’ve been done for a while. It’s almost like someone forgot to add the room category to the website. For such a taste-specific style of accommodations, I think it makes more sense to have these be a booking category than the old ‘Pool or Water View.’ This is more equivalent to the King Room vs. Standard Room distinction.
Frankly, putting in a ‘plug’ for the Little Mermaid rooms was one of my main motivations for covering this topic. We really like these rooms, and think they’re a great option for many families looking for a Moderate Resort with the space-saving design features of DVC studios. This really fly under the radar due to a lack of marketing, but they’re worth checking out!
Finally, it’s interesting to once again see Walt Disney World stick with the Value, Moderate, Deluxe and Villa categories. There were rumors roughly 7 years ago that this would go away in favor of resort regions, and it was expected to happen after the Skyliner opened.
While I can see the value in retaining the tiers (and it certainly makes my life easier–a lot of posts would have to be overhauled if they were abandoned!), I also think they’ve arguably outlived some of their usefulness. Are the Art of Animation Family Suites really a value? Is Gran Destino Tower the same as the Alligator Bayou section of Riverside? Is it more useful to draw attention to Pop Century being on the Skyliner to explain the distinction from the All Stars?
You could easily argue that the current tiers could be inferred from pricing. That more valuable ‘at a glance’ info for first-timers would come via resort districts (e.g. Magic Kingdom Area, EPCOT Area, etc.) or other key features (Skyliner Resort, Monorail Resort, etc.). Perhaps that would further complicate an already confusing process, and there are also resorts that would defy categorization with those methods.
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Your Thoughts
Thoughts on Walt Disney World recategorizing resort rooms for 2026? Optimistic that this means the Royal Rooms will return next year post-refurbishment? Where at Walt Disney World are you staying in 2026? Any resorts you’re intentionally avoiding? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
